my last night in barcelona. for now.

it's fuckingbullshit. i am weeping like a little girl and pouting my lower lip out like it's been hit with a baseball. nothing feels sweet and buttterfly-like. it feels sad and scary because of the genuine comfort i feel in life RIGHT..NOW. it feels like the end of a play, when everyone hugs and does a full-crew curtsy for the crowd. it's astounding to look around at these people you've spent difficult and funny times with. people you started to get *at the core*, and people you let yourself just be YOU (ME) with. and the reality is, this is the end of this play. all the characters have learned their places and found a place to be comfortable and totally crazy and expressive. we know how we interact with each others' characters. we have certain ones where we have an unspoken relationship with and secretly look after, love, flirt, adore. we have others who we are used to standing in the same room with for hours each week, yet know nothing of them... or don't fucking care... and each piece is essential to the machine running properly. the dynamic on a macro level is perfection and ridiculously beautiful.

i had a series of love-at-first-sight moments here, with more people i've allowed in in a really long time. for the first time in a long time i feel surrounded by a family, a crew, and i am scared to leave it even for a day because i never want to lose what i've found here. in one year i have seen the very opposite ends of life. i've felt life-threatening despair. i found wholeness and openness. i have let my fear drive me to closeness and surrender to the intimacy and ongoing adjustments you have to succumb to in order to have tranquility flowing melodically. that would be seriously scary perfection if you get all that to jive constantly and in unison. i'm proud i've just swam in the waters.

it's insane that so much happiness can bring forward such a sadness. i guess i've actually found 'home.' for years i've been looking for a place to want to root down. i have definitely, completely found it in barcelona. i have a long way before coming back and finding my next HOME, and rekindling my friendships i've gone without for months (um, ok, a shot a jaeger and we'll be half way there... ;) ).

i also have a chest full of love for my new venezuelan brothers. i haven't shared an apt with people in a long time, and these boys had their moments... but when i think of them i think of all those evenings on the beach, singing and laughing, and always knowing they would take care of me first and foremost. i found myself somewhere between a girlfriend/sister/mom figure with them, and they let me in... even when i convinced them to change the wall color, furniture and lighting. they helped me with everything. they loved me from the moment i arrived. i don't ever expect to find a roommate situation like this again. and this is just another reason i sit here so melancholy tonight. ((poor me)) ((sorrrrrrry))

The Beatles
Lennon/McCartney

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you
in time - It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.
All you need is love (all together now)
All you need is love (everybody)
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Tomorrow is my birthday. For some reason this always is the most depressing and lonely day of the year, without fail. I am ALWAYS proven a total ass for these feelings, but the day before my bday I wonder who, or if, anyone really loves me. It's really very narcissistic I think. Last year I remember sending people bday messages on Facebook in the weeks before my birthday, thinking and hoping they would in turn remember me on my day. It's so stupid and crazy!!!! That is retarded!!! It reminds me of the Xmas card dilemma I've always watched my mom get cockamamie (that’s a mom word and I love it!) about: Well I wasn't going to send THEM a card because 2 years ago they didn't send US one but 2 days before Xmas I get THEIR card, so I HAVE to get one back to them today....

Part of the difficulty with constantly moving around is that I also constantly feel farther away from people I've fallen deeply in love with... and I've lived in so many cool places and befriended a ridiculously brilliant and dazzling group of friends... how can I not feel lonely without them!?

I do hope I am remembered tomorrow but I am taking this brilliant opportunity today to sit back and watch as the clock ticks closer and closer to midnight, when my bday starts, and allow the deepest gratitude to enter my heart. I have the most incredible family. My parents, brother and Dez and Alyssa and Tesa are all hysterical and entertaining and loving. They will always tell me what they think, and it’s usually worlds away from what I think, but I love them for caring enough to do that. And for loving me when I take my own path anyway. :)

My SF friends feel farther and farther away these days, yet I am living a lifestyle many of them did during the time I knew them, and now I *get* it. My SF friends made me easy-going and excited about life. They gave me the tools to love on a deep level and divulge my deepest secrets, knowing it will pull them closer if I do so. Not all friends can offer this. Shit, most can’t. The SFers are still the most creative, friendly, gratifying, effortless, lovely, eccentric, blissful people I know. When I lived there lots of them were enjoying the dot-com bust and living the unemployed (or funemployed, really) lifestyle while I marched with the ants day after day. They would tell me about how they really learned to enjoy life while they were unemployed. They did things they never had time for before, they sat in coffee shops in the middle of the day and read, they stayed out all night dancing, they wandered our lovely city aimlessly. At the time my corporate-fueled mind thought it was all so pointless. And now I am reminded what a young soul I am. Patience, young Grasshopper.

My Seattle friends have all moved to SF for the most part, and while I saw that coming it makes my thoughts of Seattle slightly vacant feeling. The most extraordinary people I’ve ever met took me in as a favor to a friend I met once. The arms of like 30 people opened wide, gathered me and surrounded me and made me part of the soup. We lived together, created mind-blowing shit together, cuddled together, partied together, questioned and explored shit together, laughed a LOT together, gussied up in awesome costumes and shook our little asses till sunrise. Now they all have babies. And there are us few stragglers watching the coolest people on earth raise the coolest little kids on earth.

My NY friends are only a handful, but they are immensely compassionate and intimate, and they were my allies during a very dark time for me. Today I wish I had been able to enjoy life more when I lived in NY so I could have spent more time loving my friends there. They truly loved me despite my constant efforts to push them all away.

Here in Barcelona I have a place I can go where everyone knows my name.

Making your way in the world today takes everything you've got.
Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot.

Wouldn't you like to get away?

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,
and they're always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
our troubles are all the same
You wanna be where everybody knows
Your name.

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

It’s 12:13. Feliz Cumpleanos, conmigo. Life has been good to me!